Plenary 5 Keynote Address: Fueling Tourism Growth, Impact and Scalability Through Innovation
In the rapidly evolving landscape of global tourism, innovation stands as the cornerstone of progress and sustainability. Innovation tourism isn't just about adopting the technology, new technologies. It's about creating unforgettable experiences, implementing sustainable practices, and developing scalable business models that support both local and global economies. Welcome everyone.
My name is Selma Laganin, And thank you for joining us today for this keynote fireside chat on fueling tourism growth impact and scalability through innovation With the president and the CEO of Chemonix, Mr. Jamie Buccia. Just a brief one sentence on Chemonix That's basically Chemonix International is present in over 100 countries around the world 6.5 thousand employees and I, standing here, am very proud to be part of this big family.
By way of introduction, I will quote Jamie in describing how he sees our work. What I love about international development is collaborating with people who have different ideas and perspectives to find solutions and share experiences about things that work. It is quite difficult to describe a CEO's career path, but we are particularly proud that Jamie was a fellow citizen of Sarajevo during the late 90s.
I'm sure that the time that he spent in our city and the country has helped him in his further work in international development. Joining Mr. Bucci in this interesting discussion is our great emcee, Rajan Dutta, a man who has made 50 travel documentaries for the BBC over the last two decades, including one on the Balkan region.
He has also recently produced a three-part radio series on the challenges facing travel industry. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, dear guests and friends, I am very honoured to introduce our esteemed speakers, Mr. Jamie Butcher, President and CEO of Chemonix International, hello Jamie, and Mr. Rajan Dattar. And I always wanted to say, please let me, over to you, Rajan. Thank you. Thank you, Selma.
Well that was a lovely intro. So welcome Jamie, you have been president and CEO since 2020, but for those of us in the room who don't know, can you tell us a little bit about the history of Kemonics and its relationship with USAID? Sure. So Kemonics, and first off thank you, thank you for having me and thank you everyone for joining us.
Comonics International is a leading sustainable development organization. And what that means is that for the last 50 years, we've been working primarily with USAID, but increasingly with other donors and private sector investment to help create a more sustainable future. We have, as Selma said, a hundred different countries we work in, 6 ,500 teammates, much like our Bosnia tourism team here. The best and brightest individuals in their respective fields from the communities and countries where we work.
Vast majority of our teammates are local professionals and really because of that, I think Comonix is one of the most incredible places that anybody can work. And from that perspective, we've been in the last 50 years looking at the world in a wide variety of lenses, including supporting tourism development all over the globe, harnessing the power of applied technology. We talked about data in the last panel, Looking at how we can increasingly use data to understand customers and markets make better decisions and also pushing and and supporting mass culture initiatives that open up new parts of the world like the Balkans to Increasing number of tourists that are coming through and the USAID connection. How does that work? USAID is a donor Organization that provides the investment and then come on X like many other implementing partners competes for the work And we've been in Bosnia-Herzegovina now since the late 90s. We've had 20 programs, some of which were regional and some were fully in Bosnia- Herzegovina, and in a wide variety of fields. When I first came to Bosnia 26 years ago, we were looking at infrastructure primarily, and that work evolved towards commercial courts, banking and finance, media support, and a wide variety of other initiatives that have allowed us to support the trajectory of this great country in this region.
I'm gonna ask you about your personal experience in a second, but just just to clear things up. I mean some people might be, and I'm a journalist, some people might say, oh, is this like an arm of US foreign policy? What's what's the motive? How would you how would you counter that? So like every country like the US, there's a foreign policy agenda, and I think the most unique things about The U.S. foreign policy is that back in the 60s, USAID was created as a means of supporting socioeconomic development of countries around the world, and they do really heroic work, and I'm very pleased and honored that we have the opportunity to support their initiatives and their goals and visions, including here. Now then, you have this personal relationship with this country.
Just take us through that. What were you like then? It was like, what, in the 90s? And what were your first impressions? So 26 years ago I had my first opportunity at come on it's to take a work trip as only my second overseas trip to be honest And I came to Sarajevo and of course I was in a very different place that I think Bosnia-Herzegovina was in a very different place then and but I immediately fell in love with the culture and the warmth and and everything about Everything I experienced so much so that a couple of years later and a few trips later I actually moved to Sarajevo and lived here for a few years. During that time, I was able to visit so many different corners of the country, skiing in Yajurina and Igman and hiking through mountains and so many other things that I, at the time, wished everybody could experience. I also went around the region as well and had the opportunity to really enrich my understanding of our work and the way that we go about it.
Then I became an executive. I returned to the U.S. in 2007 and I was honored to take leadership of our Europe and Eurasia region, which meant that our growing portfolio of work in this area meant that I had an opportunity to keep coming back. And just between everybody in this room, I look for any opportunity I can to come back, including this one, and I'll be here many times in the future, I'm sure. And you'll be having conversations while you're here with people and things might happen. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Now, kimonics aren't just in the field of tourism, they're in other industries as well. But tell me, how much, how important do you think tourism is today in terms of international development? Well, I mean, first off, I'm no expert, but my eyes are continuing to be opened by all of our panelists and our experts and the, you know, Ibrahim and Fijhat and all of the leaders that are bringing tourism and its importance forward. And if you think about it from an economic point of view, which is what we've heard earlier, it's extraordinarily important. If you think about it from a stability and cross- cultural engagement point of view, it's priceless. And so I think tourism is really at the heart of a lot of the work we and it's a convergence of many different fields we work in.
In order for tourism to work, you have to have infrastructure, rule of law, stability, economic investment, workforce engagement and development, and many other things that have to come together for tourism to succeed. And that's also why I'm so pleased with where we're at today and everything we're talking about. And as you've been saying, I've seen it on LinkedIn, tourism is the third largest industry in the world.
It's one of the fastest- growing industries in the world. It's got potential, hasn't it? I can tell that you can see that, but let's just look at the other industries and perhaps what lessons tourism can learn from other industries, do you think? In the last few years, we've really looked at how we can take the experiences that we're having in each country and the work we're doing to create outcomes that are sustainable and scale those outcomes within a country or across regions and across the world where appropriate. What are the factors and variables that we need to harness in order to make that happen? What we've discovered, and I think it's, you know, maybe it's obvious, is that across all of our portfolio projects where we look at environment, education, health, economic growth, and whatever other area and sector we may be working in, including tourism, we're working on applied technologies, technologies, taking the best and brightest technologies and the most cutting-edge tools and applying them in the communities where we work. Last panel talked about data. That's a second area that we're really focused in on, using data to make better decisions.
And in my opinion, taking the data and availability of data and analytics and flipping the equation from what is often in our space, sustainable development, a push of programmatic efforts to something that is more of a demand pull by knowing our customers better, understanding who are the customers, what do they want, and how do they react in the market. And lastly, mass culture. Those are the three areas that we focused in on.
And I think it's particularly relevant with one example. We work with a group called Unleash, brings together entrepreneurs and innovators, and we provide grants and training. And one entrepreneur struck my attention a few years ago when I was one of the panelists for what we called Dragon's Den, which will be similar to our discussions tomorrow. And I can't wait to see what our entrepreneurs tomorrow present. A woman who created a company called Wonder Woman. It's a technology platform.
It's an app, but using data and analytics to help vet tour packages for women traveling through Southeast Asia. and she really got started because she's in Bangladesh and was restricted from traveling to receive an award and saw that not just as a challenge as the Ibrahim said earlier, but as an opportunity and So we provided a small grant to her and her her startup her venture Ibrahim and others provided some technical assistance, and it's a good example of that convergence of data market analytics need technology to scale. Now she has thousands of customers using her app.
She's competing at TechCrunch in Silicon Valley with other better resourced entrepreneurs and ventures and doing quite well. And creating a mass culture initiative, really, with the work she's doing. And again, I can't wait to see what our entrepreneurs are going to bring forward tomorrow. But I think these are the kinds of synthesis of those three capabilities that allow us to take areas like tourism and bring it to a mass market and not only have those areas around this region like Dubrovnik and Belgrade and others that we've heard about, but other areas through the Beautiful Villages programs and other places that deserve to be seen by people around the world more accessible to them. Was this the Philippines lady that you were talking about? Was this, because I know that you wanted to mention a Philippines innovation as well.
I mean this happened to be an entrepreneur in Bangladesh Philippines as part of her Wonder Woman package of tours and the Philippines we're doing work right now to attract private capital in order to create a financial system a zelle if you will a Venmo of the Philippines and we're doing that because Increasingly we're recognizing our donor community USAID FCDO European Union and others should be in places like this a donor not of of last resort, an investor of last resort, but really an investor of first resort. I think Inga in the last panel mentioned the need for guarantees and other seed investments that will allow for private capital to follow. And that's why we're so focused on attracting private capital.
If you look at the sustainable development goals, we are trillions of dollars short of achieving them. And they are critical for all of us, all of humanity. And the only way we're going to reach that gap is through private capital investment. And we're experimenting with different ways to mobilize private capital, the Philippines being one where our initiative called Higala is looking at how we can get more inclusive digital financing mechanisms in the hands of everybody in the Philippines, which, by the way, should tremendously improve the tourism operations there. Because if you can't pay for something, you can't go.
And so we're hoping that that and other ventures like it will attract private capital and have a knock-on effect and really spur economic growth and development. Now, one important factor I think that's emerged, certainly since COVID, since the pandemic, is the importance of respecting the views of local communities. So, you know, you will go into countries and you will say, this is a great idea, But how much are you actually talking to local communities to make sure they are happy with how things are going? Yeah, so I think it's a misnomer and probably me on stage giving this answer Further is that misnomer? We are in extreme inextricably linked to the local communities where we work in fact You know when you think about the subject of our our get-together innovation and resilience you might think those are two different things. Resilience is stability and lasting. Innovation is disruptive and change.
But really, to me, it's linked through the concept of innovation. We looked at capabilities and characteristics of innovators. And there's one that comes up through every study that's done about innovation, and it's optimism. And it's because you have to understand how something works in order to endeavor to change it. You have to try and fail many times. And the people that are successful at that are optimists.
And they have the knowledge that only comes from living and working in the communities and countries where we operate. So the reason why the vast majority, 95 % plus of our teammates around the world are local professionals is because of that. Our partners, all of our partners here and everybody we've had on the stage really can only succeed with our partnerships and our local professionals and the connectivity we have between them and all we do really is provide that enabling environment for that to happen.
Partnerships, it's the theme of this conference as we'll gradually find out more and more. Jamie Butcher, it's so lovely to hear both your personal and your professional connection with this country. Please, a round of applause for Jamie Butcher. Thank you. Now, I am hearing somewhere in my ear that we have another spontaneous moment because we have a special announcement, I think.
Imano, can you tell us more? Absolutely, Rajen. Jamie, if you will please move from our focus stage to our main stage where you will be joined by Daniela Wagner, Global Business Development Director, Jacobs Media, and Amjad Sawalha, Chief of Party, USA Jordan Tourism Board Activity. Let's also welcome back Duncan Horton, Group CEO, Jacobs Media, and Ibrahim Osta, Senior Destination Development Advisor, Chemonics International, who are all going to tell you more about this special announcement. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you so much for joining us today. We're really proud to be here.
We started planning this event a year ago when I came for the Business Forum for Sarajevo, and I decided that we should bring this fabulous event to this country. Now, as we've learned this morning, what we do, the Resilience Council and Jacobs Media, is to promote partnerships, to bring together global experts, to talk about issues that really matter to our industry and how we can move forward safely and happily in building this wonderful industry. And I think you've seen many examples of that, and we're all about practical application of case studies and real collaboration. And I thought the photo of Minister Bartlett standing with your minister this morning was a great example of how two people can connect across many continents. The reason I'm up here today is because I wanted to use the opportunity of having Jamie on the stage with us to announce where we're going to be having our Global Resilience Council event next year, and again in partnership with USAID. and I'm delighted to announce that once again, we're going to be returning to the beautiful country of Jordan, okay? One of the most fabulous places, surrounded by great culture, great food, great opportunities.
We did an event there in 2018 with Amjad, who was then already involved and is now going to be the Chief of Party for USAID next year and we are very much looking forward to coming back to that beautiful country and we would like to invite everyone in this room to come and join us and to continue the discussion in a different direction. Thank you very much, thank you. I just also want to say a very special thank you to my dear friend Ibrahim Oster who I've known since 2016.
I met him in Madrid, again an amazing meeting opportunity and he said let's do something together and we've worked successfully across multiple events in Jordan, South Africa, Nepal, London, and now here and lots more to come in the future. So we're going to have a quick photo and then we'll go on with the program. Thank you again. So I'm really excited to have this announcement made and, you know, marking Fijiud and the team's success in pulling together this conference, and I want to acknowledge that, the opportunity to then take the next step and return to Jordan. And we, through that leadership, have provided a $10 ,000 grant for entrepreneurs that we'll be seeing tomorrow, I mentioned.
And I hope everybody will come to the pitches that we're doing. We'll be doing the same in Jordan. And just hoping to see everybody there coming from this great opportunity that we're having today and tomorrow and continuing that effort next year. So thank you.
2024-07-22 04:51
